A HUD Official Once Criticized Trump. Now He’s an Ex-Official.

Ben Carson, right, greeted Shermichael Singleton, a top aide, before the start of his confirmation hearing to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development last month.Credit
Al Drago/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — A top aide to President Trump’s housing secretary nominee, Ben Carson, was fired and led out of the department’s headquarters by security on Wednesday after writings critical of Mr. Trump surfaced in his vetting, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Shermichael Singleton, who was one of the few black conservatives in the Trump administration, had been working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development since Jan. 23 as a senior adviser. He was preparing a cross-country tour for Mr. Carson, who is expected to be confirmed by the Senate this month.

But according to the two people briefed, Mr. Singleton’s background check had not been completed. As it was being finished this week, Mr. Trump’s advisers turned up public writings by Mr. Singleton that appeared during the later stages of the campaign in which he was deeply critical of the candidate.

“My party in particular has allowed itself to be taken over by someone who claims to be a Republican but doesn’t represent any of our values, principles or traditions,” he wrote in The Hill in October 2016.

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The firing was reminiscent of the decision by the White House to block a senior Republican foreign policy adviser, Elliott Abrams, from becoming deputy secretary of state. The move came after Mr. Abrams’s anti-Trump writings came to the president’s attention. Mr. Abrams had been the choice of Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson.

A person close to Mr. Singleton said an initial vetting of the 26-year-old by HUD and White House personnel had come up with his criticism. He answered a number of questions regarding the article and expressed remorse for the piece and support for Mr. Trump.

But a second look may have done him in. On Wednesday, Mr. Singleton was presented again with the piece and told it was the reason for his termination. Reached by phone, he would say only, “I can’t talk about that.”

A spokesman for HUD confirmed Mr. Singleton’s position and said only that, “As of Feb. 15, 2017, he is no longer with the department.”

Mr. Singleton plans to return to a previous job he held as a vice president with Howard Stirk Holdings, a media company run by Armstrong Williams, a conservative media personality and close friend of Mr. Carson’s.

A version of this article appears in print on February 17, 2017, on Page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: HUD Aide Once Criticized Trump. Now He’s an Ex-Aide. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe